Office365, Apps and Multi-Factor Authentication

Premise

I had just enabled the multi-factor authentication option for my Office365 account. I chose authentication by Microsoft Authenticator app. Once the setup was completed, I was able to successfully access my Office365 account/apps online i.e., in a web browser. However, on my laptop, I was unable to sign into any of my office apps (Outlook, Skype for Business, etc.).

Solution

This problem occurred due to the enabling of the multi-factor authentication option. The office apps, currently, don’t have a mechanism to verify multi-factor authentication. So your regular password won’t work here! 😐

Instead, you have to generate a fixed app password. Following are the steps to do the same:-

Select app passwords. It may look like its disabled, but no, it’s clickable and is perfectly enabled! 😦

Select create. You will be prompted for a unique name. Since I intend to use this password in my outlook app, I named it Outlook.

Once you hit next, your app password will be displayed.

Use the password for logging into any one of your app.

Footnote

This looks terrible directly from the onset! It is generally advisable to enable multi-factor authentication for additional security. However, for now, I won’t recommend the same for your Microsoft’s work or school accounts. 😕